Dr. Birx Slams “Slicey & Dicey” Mainstream Media For Fixation On Trump’s ‘Sunlight’ Comments

The MSM has slammed the White House and President Trump and its team of ‘expert’ scientists’, whom they’ve repeatedly tried to portray as valiant heroes working to protect the nation from the worst impulses of a president who doesn’t believe in science and germs and not shaking hands, or whatever.

Dr. Fauci is already adept at repudiating these rumors and narratives. And now, Dr.Birx has joined him. During an interview on Fox’s “Watters World” – and then again in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” –  Dr. Deborah Birx said that the media has been harming the public with its fixation on Trump’s incoherent, extemporaneous ramblings about cleaning products and light being possible vectors  for coronavirus treatments or cures.

One Fox, she said the press has a duty to transmit accurate and detailed reports to the people, but instead the MSM has fixated on Trump’s remarks instead of focusing on “the science and data” on display during the briefings.

“I think the media is very slicey and dicey about how they put sentences together in order to create headlines. …We know for millennials in other studies that some people may only read the headlines. And if there’s not a graphic, they’re not going to look any further than that.”

“And I think we have to be responsible about our headlines. I think often, the reporting maybe accurate in paragraph three, four, and five. But I’m not sure how many people actually get to paragraph three, four, and five,” she added.

“And I think the responsibility that the press has is to really ensure that the headlines reflect the science and data that is in their piece itself.”

She also defended the president and his remarks, saying he simply sometimes likes to “talk things through” out lout and on air, and that it bothers her that his remarks are still in the news cycle five days later.

“He likes to talk [new information] through out loud and really have that dialogue. And so that’s what dialogue he was having. I think he just saw the information at the time, immediately before the press conference. And he was still digesting that information,” Birx said.

“The president has always put health and safety first. I think you can see that in the way that he was supportive of slowing the spread guidelines — knew the impact that that would have on the economy, and knew clearly what impact it would have on the economy,” she added.

“Yet, he realized that the health and safety of Americans was his number one interest and responsibility.”

Later, during a Sunday appearance on CNN with Tapper, Dr. Birx again declined to criticize the president’s remarks, and kept trying to focus on the science and data, despite Tapper’s apparent desire to focus solely on Trump’s comments from five days ago.

Here Birx correctly re-emphasizes MIT study that sun light reduces viral load in sneezing and coughing aerosol, and that there is an unusual younger demo being affected by COVID-19 (perhaps by home lockdowns), but @CNN‘s Tapper only wants to focus on the stupid gaffe by Trump.🤦‍♂️ https://t.co/la61fMKtc8

— Donald McIntyrrrrrrre 🦖🥩 (@MyEtherplan) April 26, 2020

She tried to keep the focus on the research, something we’ve also tried to do here and here.

Fresh air, sunlight and improvised face masks seemed to work a century ago; and they might help us now.

When new, virulent diseases emerge, such SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected. As the current crisis unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged. Health officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world. The results were mixed. But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.

Influenza patients getting sunlight at the Camp Brooks emergency open-air hospital in Boston. Medical staff were not supposed to remove their masks. (National Archives)

Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff. There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.

Anybody who thinks CNN is performing a “public service” by keeping Trump’s comments in the news cycle should maybe take Dr. Birx’s remarks into consideration, instead of denouncing her as a traitor, as the Guardian seems intent on doing in its headline.